In order to understand why the hair becoms broken or damaged we should understand how th hair is built up. The image shows you a hair under the microscope.

The hair has a flexible spirallic cortex maerial. This is responsible for the flexibility so technically speaking it is like a spring.

If the medulla surrounded by this cortex contains too much watert it becomes thicker and longer. It tightens the spirallic cortex, which means a straighter and thicker hair.

If the water content decreases -which resusts weight loss- then this cortex spring shrinks and makes the hair shorter, curlier. It can be caused by naturally by inheritence and artificially by hairdressers.

The broken hair will become not only inflexible the the outser surface will also be damaged.

The outer, roof tile-like ember cells will get rumbled just like the real roof tiles after a storm. Naturally, this time not only the mechanical function of the hair will get damaged but also the hair becomes unprotected. All in all it looses its shielding function.

In an everyday sense this damage on the outer surface of the hair is called "broken hair".

What else can cause broken hair?

There are lof of things seeming totally harmless in our everyday life that can be responsible for broken hair. E.g. this damage is cased by rubber rings.

If you want to protect your hair, you would not like to have broken hair then do not force things that can physically damage it!

E.g when choosing hairgrips you should check if it has some sharp edges! So not only the style and match is important! Sharp edges can cause irreparable damages!

Same case with hair irons which are used more and more frequently nowadays. This picture demonstrates how hair ironing damages the hair and you can see what happens with your hair if it gets overheated: the tip of the hair cracks.